A look at Africa's history up to around 1500 ad

African Empires to 1500 CE

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East African

Ancient Zimbabwe Ruins


The Kingdom of Aksum

In the sixth century, the kingdom of Aksum (Axum) was doing what many elsewhere had been doing: pursuing trade and empire. Despite the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the 400s and the decline in world trade, Aksum's trade increased during that century. Its exports of ivory, glass crystal, brass and copper items, and perhaps slaves, among other things, had brought prosperity to the kingdom. Some people had become wealthy and cosmopolitan. Aksum's port city on the Red Sea, Adulis, bustled with activity. Its agriculture and cattle breeding flourished, and Aksum extended its rule to Nubia, across the Red Sea to Yemen, and it had extended its rule to the northern Ethiopian Highlands and along the coast to Cape Guardafui.

From Aksum's beginnings in the third century, Christianity there had spread. But at the peak of Christianity's success, Aksum began its decline. In the late 600s, Aksum's trade was diminished by the clash between Constantinople and the Sassanid Empire. The Sassanid Empire clashed with Constantinople over trade on the Red Sea and expanded into Yemen, driving Aksum out of Arabia. Then Islam united Arabia and began expanding. In the 700s, Muslim Arabs occupied the Dahlak Islands just off the coast of Adulis, which had been ruled by Aksum. The Arabs moved into the port city of Adulis, and Aksum's trade by sea ended.

Aksum was now cut off from much of the world. Greek- the language of trade - declined there. Minted coins became rare. Paganism revived and mixed with Christianity. And it has been surmised that the productivity of soil in the area was being diminished by over-exploitation and the cutting down of trees. Taking advantage of Aksum's weakness, the Bedja people, who had been living just north of Aksum, moved in. The people of Aksum, in turn, migrated into the Ethiopian Highlands, where they overran small farmers and settled at Amhara, among other nearby places. And with this migration a new Ethiopian civilization began.
West Africa

In West Africa, trade was giving rise to towns. There, on the fringes of the Sahara, arose a kingdom and empire that its rulers called Wagadu. The people of this kingdom were the Soninke - black people who spoke the language of Mande. Their king was called Ghana, and Ghana became the name by which this kingdom and empire became known - ancient Ghana rather than the modern state also called Ghana.

The kings of ancient Ghana were authoritarian. They inherited rule through their mother's side of the family - matrilineal rather than patrilineal as with kings in Europe at the time - and they claimed descent from an original ancestor whom they believed had first settled the land. Ghana's king was the leader of a religious cult that was served by devoted priests, and the king's subjects were obliged to view him as divine and as too exalted to communicate directly with them.

Ghana's kings had enhanced their power and enriched themselves by exploiting the trade passing through their territory. From the perspective of merchants they were not unlike highway bandits, forcing from tradesmen a tax on the gold they carried. But the tax was shrewder than robbery: a continual robbery would have ended the arrival of tradesmen carrying gold.

As Ghana's kings grew richer they conquered, forcing obedience from the kings of other tribes, from whom they exacted tribute. They extended their rule to the gold producing regions to their south, and they imposed a tax on gold production.

Ghana's major competitor was the Berber dominated city of Awdaghost to the northwest - a city with an ample supply of water, surrounded by herds of cattle and where millet, wheat, grapes, dates and figs were grown. The Berbers who dominated that city had wanted to make it the major point of passage for caravan trading across the western Sahara. But in 990 Ghana conquered the city, putting Ghana at the peak of its power.
Muslim Incursions

During Ghana's days of glory, Muslim tradesmen were coming south in caravans from places like Sijilmasa, Tunis and Tripoli. From Sijilmasa the caravans had been going through Taghaza to Awdaghost. From Tunis and Tripoli they had been going to Hausaland and the Lake Chad region. They had been bringing salt southward, and they also carried cloth, copper, steel, cowry shells, glass beads, dates and figs. And they brought slaves for sale.

The Muslims were literate while the Soninke and their kings were not. The Soninke left no record of the doings of their kings. It was through Muslim writers that modern historians would gather what information they could about Ghana.

The Muslims were offended to find people worshiping their king as a divinity rather than worshiping Allah. The Muslims complained of people believing their kings to be the source of life, sickness, health and death. The Muslim writer al-Bakre described a Ghana king as having an army of 200,000 men, 40,000 of whom were archers. And he described the presence in Ghana of small horses.

Among the Soninke, the town of Kumbi had become a commercial center alongside a town of round mud-brick huts. Muslim tradesmen living there built stone houses and a number of mosques. Some Muslims there served as ministers at the king's palace, and the town of Kumbi became an intellectual center for western Africa.

Muslim writers described one king of Ghana as renowned for his great wealth and the splendor of his court. The king held audience wearing fine fabrics and gold ornaments and bedecked his animals and retainers in gold. People in the north of Africa spoke of the king of Ghana as the richest monarch in the world.

But the power of the kings of Ghana was destined to end. Muslims in western Africa united behind the Almoravids - a Muslim dynasty that ruled in Morocco and Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. A religious movement among the Muslims known as the Sanhaja inspired the Almoravids and others to a jihad (holy war), and Muslim Berbers in the Sahara joined an effort toward conversions and war against Ghana. The leader of the Sanhaja movement and army in the Sahara area, Abu Bakr, captured Awdaghost in 1054. And in 1076, after many battles, he captured the city of Kumbi.

Almoravid domination of Ghana lasted only a few years, but the Almoravids held onto control of the desert trade that had been dominated by Ghana. Without control of the gold trade, the power of Ghana's kings declined further. They had, meanwhile, converted to Islam - while holding onto the religious rituals and myths that justified their rule to their subjects. Ghana's kings allowed Berber herdsmen to move into Soninke homelands, and these herdsmen began overgrazing Ghana's lands. Ghana's agricultural land became worn and less able to support as many people as before. Subject kings and tribes broke away from Ghana's rule. The king of the Sosso people, in neighboring Kaniaga, turned the tables on Ghana, and in 1203 the Sosso overran Ghana's capital city, Kumbi.
The Mandingo Empire

After their victory over Ghana, the Sosso expanded against the Mandingo (or Mande) - a people who spoke Mande and lived on fertile farmland around Wangara. The Sosso king, Sumaguru Kante, put to death all of the sons of the Mandingo ruler but one, Sundjata, who appeared to be an insignificant cripple. But Sundjata rallied the Mandingo. A guerrilla army built by Sundjata overwhelmed the Sosso and in 1235 killed their king, Sumaguru Kante. Sundjata annexed Ghana in 1240, and he took control of the gold trade routes. Merchants moved out of Kumbi to another commercial city farther north: Walata. And in small groups the Soninke people began emigrating from what had been their homeland.

The empire that Sundjata created, called Mali, controlled the salt trade from Taghaza and the copper trade across the Sahara. The gold trade was a source of wealth for Mali, and so too was trade in food: sorghum, millet and rice. And regarding trade, Mali dominated the town of Timbuktu, nine miles north of the Niger River, which had risen a century or two before as a point of trade for desert caravans.

After Sundjata's death in 1255 more conquests were made by his successors - Mansa Uli and then Sakura. Sakura had been a freed slave serving in the royal household and had seized power after the ruling family had become weakened by quarreling among themselves. It is surmised that Sakura was responsible for Mali's expansion to Tekrur in the west and to Gao in the east.

By the 1300s, Mali's kings had converted to Islam, which gave them advantages of good will in diplomacy and commerce. But, again, the pagan rituals and artifacts that were a part of the ideology and justification of rule were maintained. And the king's loyal subjects continued their traditional prostrations and covering themselves with dust to display their humility.

By the 1300s, Muslim Mandingo merchants were trading as far east as the city-states in Hausaland and beyond to Lake Chad. Islam was spreading with the trade of its merchants, and it appears that in the 1300s or 1400s the kings of Hausaland converted to Islam. But when a Mali king tried to pressure people in the gold mining region around Wangara to convert, a disruption in the production of gold was threatened, and the pressure to convert was withdrawn.

One well known Mali emperor who was Muslim was Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312-1337. On record is Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca, his entourage described as including 500 slaves with gold staffs and 100 camels each with 300 pounds of gold. Mansa Mura is described as spending lavishly in the bazaars of Cairo and his spending is said to have increased the supply of gold to an extent that its price depreciated on the Cairo exchange. And, as usual, scholars were not immune from being influenced by wealth, Mansa Musa bringing a collection of them back with him from Mecca. Mali was literate, but only insofar as it employed Muslim scribes at the court of its kings. As in Europe, the common people of Mali were not yet expected to read and write.
The Songhai Rebellion and Mali's Decline

Mali reached its peak in fame and fortune in the 1300s. Then weak and incompetent kings inherited power. Late in the 1300s the old problem of dynastic succession brought quarrels that weakened the Mali kingship and gave others opportunity.

The others in this instance were the Songhai people, who lived along the middle of the Niger River and monopolized fishing and canoe transport there. Trade at Gao had brought Islam to the Songhai. Some Songhai royalty had converted to Islam, as had an unknown percentage of Songhai commoners. Mali control over the Songhai capital, Gao, had always been tentative, and the spirit of independence had not died among Songhai kings. A Songhai king led his people in rebellion. The rebellion disrupted Mali's trade on the Niger River. Mali's empire suffered as the Songhai sacked and occupied Timbuktu in 1433-34. In 1464 a Songhai king, Sonni 'Ali took power, and again Timbuktu was attacked, Sonni 'Ali capturing the city after a great loss of life. Five years later, Sonni 'Ali conquered the town of Jenne which had been thought impregnable. In his twenty-eight years of military campaigning, the victorious Songhai king won the title King of Kings. He dominated trade routes and the great grain producing region of the Niger river delta. Sonni 'Ali's competitor, the Mali empire, was deteriorating, and the Mali empire was to die in the 1600s.
Benin Exports Slaves

Benin was a city that dated back to the eleventh century - and no relation to the West African nation of Benin of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Benin was a large city for its time - a walled city several kilometers wide in a forested region inland from where the Niger River emptied into the Atlantic. In the mid-1400s the ruler of Benin, Ewuare, built up his military and began expanding. Captives taken in battle he traded to the Portuguese. Benin's empire reached about 190 miles (300 kilometers) in width by the early 1500s. Then it stopped expanding, and with this it had no more captives to sell as slaves, while selling slaves to the Portuguese was being taken up by others.
South Central Africa

Some scholars theorize that Bantu speaking people had moved south from around the Benue River in western Africa into south-central Africa. By the 900s, the pastoral and Hamitic speaking Tutsi were migrating southward, into east-central Africa, to Rwanda, near Ukerewe, in centuries to come to be known as Lake Victoria. There, it is said, the Tutsi introduced cattle raising, iron-working, new crops, kingship and caste divisions. The people whom the Tutsi overran were Bantu speakers - the Hutu - and the Tutsi made vassals of some of the Hutu, giving them cattle in exchange for services and loyalty.

Before the 1100s agriculture was practiced in much of south-central Africa, except in the interior of southern Angola, close to the Kalahari Desert. In south-central Africa, bananas were grown. This was tropical woodland and savana, where yams and sugar cane were grown. Beans, groundnuts, sorghum and other millets were cultivated in areas of savanna. And people augmented their food production by hunting, fishing, gathering grubs and by raising chickens, pigs and, in a few places, cattle. There was also pottery making, wickerwork and salt production. At Munza were iron mines. People in this region of Africa preferred using salt and metal, including copper, as currency for trading. By the 1300s, communities in Katanga were uniting into a kingdom of farmers, fishermen and crafts people, and they were trading in dry fish and products made of metal.

In some of the more remote parts of south-central Africa were villages that were still egalitarian, but in the more densely populated areas monarchs had arisen. These monarchs associated their rule with spirits, and their rule was supported by rituals and priests not totally removed from sorcery, divination, healing and fertility rites. And those supporting monarchical rule believed in the sacredness of lineage and royal blood of their monarchs. A monarch had underlings who advised him and went with him in his visits to the villages where he claimed rule. He had the keepers of emblems, a military chief and warriors to support his rule. He had slaves. And from his subjects the monarch received taxes with which to maintain his operation and to buy what he needed to maintain what he considered an appropriate lifestyle.

By the 1400s small empires thrived in south-central Africa. One was centered at Luba , built by iron-working farmers in a place well-suited for agricultural surpluses: with fertile land and sufficient rainfall. And there were woodlands, lakes and rivers for supplementary hunting and fishing. Another empire was centered at Lunda , its center about 400 kilometers southwest of the center of Luba's empire. It was less densely populated than Luba and not quite as agricultural, and where, it appears, people learned metal working from Luba. A third empire was centered in the kingdom of the Kongo, which dominated areas such as Loango, Kakong, Ngoi and Kisama.
Eastern Africa

Those who remained in Nubia after conquests by the Soba and by the Aksumites lived for long periods in peace and cooperation with Egypt, including returning to Egypt runaway slaves. They traded with Egypt, and some genetic diffusion with the Egyptians occurred. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, Nubia became more Arabic and more Muslim. And blacks from Nubia filled the ranks of Egypt's military.

Egypt went through rule by the Fatimids, followed by the turmoil of the Christian crusades and rule by Saladin and his Ayubbid dynasty. In 1172 Christian Nubia joined Europe's Crusaders by attacking the Ayubbids, and an Ayubbid army successfully counterattacked. In 1250 the Mamelukes replaced the Ayubbids, and the more aggressive Mamelukes warred frequently, their armies diminishing Nubian populations and taking many slaves from Nubia. Nubia split into two kingdoms, Makouria and Alwa. In the 1300s Makouria collapsed. Then in the 1400s, pastoralists from Egypt overran Alwa, and this was followed by civil war there. The Muslim invasions were accompanied by anti-Christian violence, and by 1500 little Christianity was left in what had been Nubia.
Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia

In the 700s and 800s, Arab traders looking for opportunity moved southward into coastal towns such as Mogadishu , Merca and Brava . They participated in the trade that traversed the Indian Ocean. Intermarriages with local blacks occurred. Arab tradesmen made themselves dominant in the region, and a few Arabs migrated farther south along the coast, the island of Pemba becoming part Muslim by the 900s.

Since the 900s, people in and around the Ethiopian highlands had been benefiting from trade with port cities such as Adulis on the Red Sea, Zeila and Berbera on the Gulf of Aden, and Mogadishu, Merca and Brava on the shore of the Indian Ocean. Inland were Muslim and Christian communities, often neighboring each other. The Muslims had a strong sense of community and generally participated more in trade than the Christians - trade being largely in Muslim hands. The Christians were under various chiefdoms. Many were farmers, and a few were prosperous and had slaves.

In the area was also a Jewish community, the Falashas, who spoke Ge'ez and knew no Hebrew. They were unfamiliar with the Talmuds that had been produced in West Asia, but they claimed to be descended from the ten tribes banished from Israel.

Around the year 1270, at Amhara, in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, a new Christian dynasty, the Solomonids, was founded by Yikunno-Amlak, a conqueror who was described as a king of kings. His dynasty was believed to be a continuation of the Christian kingdom that had been in Aksum centuries before. Yikunno-Amlak was to be described as descended from Solomon's son, Manelik and the Queen of Sheba. His Christian subjects believed that they were God's chosen people, that they were maintaining purity in Christian belief, and that they were members of a second Israel.

The Solomonids addressed the problem of monarchical succession by putting Yikunno-Amlak's male descendants in a mountain retreat guarded by several hundred warriors. There Yikunno-Amlak's descendants remained in isolation, studied their faith, wrote poetry and composed sacred music as they awaited selection as heir to the throne.

It was under Yikunno-Amlak's grandson, Amda Seyon (1314-44), that the Solomonids gained military dominance in Ethiopia - Solomonid rule stretching from Adulis in the north to Bali in the south. The success of Christians against Muslims in Ethiopia did not sit well with the Muslims of Egypt. In Ethiopia, Amda-Seyon became concerned about retributions against his fellow Christians in Egypt. He demanded freedom of worship and other civil rights for Christians in Egypt, and he was prepared to fight Egypt and to ally himself with Christian Europe to end Muslim supremacy in West Asia, but no such war took place. The Mamelukes of Egypt remained interested primarily in events in the eastern Mediterranean. Christians in Egypt were becoming more outnumbered by Muslims, and this would continue into the 1400s, with the Muslim majority increasingly blaming Christians and other minorities for their troubles.

In the 1400s the power of the Solomonids in Ethiopia declined as various Muslim communities rebelled against it. Under the king Beide-Maryan (1468-78), the Solomonids suffered their first serious military defeat. And after 1478 the Solomonids were weakened by a conflict over succession - their attempt to solve the problem of succession apparently having failed. War between two Solomonid princes continued for several years. Muslims took advantage of Solomonid weakness, declared a holy war, and the Solomonid Empire collapsed. But a Solomonid king remained, a local king rather than a king of kings, the Solomonids would rise again, the last of them to be Haile Selassie in the 20th century.
Farther South

Below Mogadishu, Merca and Brava, Africa remained predominately black. There were hunters, fishermen, growers of sorghum, millet, rice, cucumbers, coconuts, sugar and bananas, and some were raising cattle. Some hunter-gatherers integrated with the cattle herders or agriculturists, into societies ruled by kings who believed that they were divine but also feared assassination if they became too oppressive.

Inland, about 180 miles from the eastern coast, on a plateau sparse in trees, was Zimbabwe, where Bantu speakers were living sometime between the 5th and 10th centuries - the Bantu speaking people having replaced the Sa (Bushmen) whom they had driven into the desert. The Bantu speakers had come in two waves, the last wave being a pastoral and agricultural people who built the stone structures that were to be known in the 20th century as the ruins of Zimbabwe, of an architecture unknown to any people elsewhere in the world - the oldest of which dated from the 700s.

Gold that was mined near Zimbabwe was taken to trading towns along the coast. So too were leopard skins, rhinoceros horn, ambergris, slaves and ivory - the ivory of the African elephant more in demand than the harder ivory of the Indian elephant. Joining this trade was iron taken from deposits around the towns of Mombasa and Malindi. Traders on the eastern coast of Africa, many of them blacks, profited from a rise in trade with Asia, and from India the Africans imported silks, cottons and glassware.

From the 1100s, Arabs began arriving in greater number in this coastal area. In the 1200s Mombasa became staunchly Muslim, and a Muslim dynasty was established at Kilwa. By the mid-1200s, Kilwa controlled the trade from Sofala to its south, Sofala being a point of departure for gold from inland.

Meanwhile, economic activity in Zimbabwe was predominantly cattle raising, while the wealth of its king grew from trade in gold. With his wealth the king was able to maintain a powerful army and to extend his authority across a variety of principalities - a hundred miles to the west and to the Indian Ocean in the east. During the 1300s and into the 1400s Zimbabwe was the richest state on Africa's eastern coast, but it was also declining: Zimbabwe was losing its timber. Its lands were overgrazed and farmlands were eroding. Zimbabwe declined as a power, and it was abandoned around 1450. Successor states arose: Torwa to its west, Changamire just to its north, and Mutapa on the Zambezi River. Mutapa's economy was also based on cattle and wealth from the gold trade, and Mutapa expanded locally by military conquest.

Toward the end of the 1400s, Kilwa's preeminence on the east coast was fading as dynastic struggles sapped its strength. Kilwa was losing the trade in gold from Sofala to Mutaba. And Mutaba's gold trading attracted the Portuguese, who had begun sailing along Africa's eastern coast. Trade between Africans and the Europeans was on the rise, in slaves as well as gold.

Kalagenesis new termonology"Afripino"

Kalagenesis has found a new term to celebrate the growing number of persons who are of African-American and Filipino heritage.The term Afripino is a combination of Afri-from African and Pino -from filipino.
The plural is Afripinos
The feminine is Afripina
The plural feminine is Afripinas

Kalagenesis Poll.Are you"hood"or are you"community"

Copy of Kalagenesis Poll





Kalagenesis has a new question to ask the Black community due to the fact that every time there is a large gathering of our people trouble,violence,and chaos breaks out.It is to the point now we have savages among us(The enemy within)destroying ever place we call home.Communities with all the things every other community has but not the violence and ignorance.Why are some involved with the youth while some are mis leading the youth into a life of crime,disorder,unruly behavior and disrespect for authority.In order for you to take the poll you have to first know what the difference between being hood and being community.Here are some points
Hood:
1)You don't know who your elected officials are.
2)The only time you walk into the library is to use the bathroom
3)We you see a 16 year old girl you don't look at her beauty with respect that she is your sister,but your thinking only two more years till she is legal.
4)You write on the walls, pants sagging,cursing in front of elders,showing no consideration to anyone around
5)You can't keep a job
6)Selling drugs to you own people,getting young shorties to run errands for you.
7)Wearing a white t even to church
8)In and out of jail is a badge of honor.
9)Shooting guns and making you neighborhood a hell on Earth
10)Living in a rich White neighborhood,but you are always so hood,even though if you go to that block you will get stuck up.
Community:
1)You know who your elected officials are in you area
2)Although your working three jobs you read the paper,go to the library,and your up to date on the goings on in your community.
3)You participate in activities,police,ambulance,youth coach ect
4)You have plans to complete college to come and build in your community for the better of all
5)Yes you are against crime and will cooperate with authorities to make you community safer.
6)You know as a minority you are your brothers keeper,so it is your responsibility to help you brother or any man in real need.
7)You respect young girls as little sisters,and try to be a role model to younger kids
8)A family cookout with all relatives sitting down in love and peace tells you that money although it is important it cant replace these good times,
9)You defend your people against racist,and hate the criminals who are destroying Black America
10)You know about Africa and proud to be an African American,you can name at least 5 African countries.
These are some of the points about why our people are going down the tubes.There are some who are always complaining about what they don't have.But in the same ghettos people own cars,televisions,cable,video games, and they buy their baby boys 200 dollar Jordans.That is hood when your rims cost more that your car.You don't have a bank account only use check cashing.You think knocking off a 7/11 is ok because hey my kids got to eat.Niggers love hood,Africans or the Black man loves his community.
Family=Community=Nation.We all should strive to build the Kala Nation under God

Xenophobia in South Africa.Are we having buyers remorse?

Cyril Ramaphosa>
In the years since the Soweto uprisings in South Africa we as African American people bonded with our brothers and sisters over there against the White minority aparthied government.Through our solidarity we convinced colleges to divest in South African industry,trade,securities,mining,and more importantly military weapons.Overriding President Reagan's veto sanctions against the South African government went into effect.Although we never asked for anything in return our brotherhood with that particular African people was affirmed.In 1990 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and the whole world watched with amazement and hope for a better South Africa.Four years later he was elected as the country's first Black president,amid Black on Black violence that tore KwaZulu/Natal apart.Since the beginning Black people from all over the world was coming to South Africa to help build a new democracy,based on freedom,tolerance,and democracy.The number of African American's living in South Africa is striking and helped American businesses gain a foothold over there.From the start many questioned the safety of being in a developing country with so much recent violence,and although there was love for us because of what we were able to do,now there was growing resentment.The presence of Black American's who were taking top executive positions because big South African companies preferred us over them added to this resentment.Now recently South Africa is being hit with a wave of murderous anti foreign violence in which African Americans living there may not be immune to.Recently several high profile acts of violence against Black entertainers should take notice.the following is an article on the recent wave of xenophobia gripping the beloved country.-Kalagenesis



South Africa violence spreads

Attacks mostly target impoverished migrants from neighbouring African countries [AFP]
Violence against foreigners in Johannesburg, the South African capital, has reportedly spread to the east coast city of Durban.

Phindile Radebe, provincial police spokeswoman, said a crowd of almost 200 people carrying bottles and wooden clubs had gathered on a street in Durban's impoverished suburb of Umbilo and began carrying out attacks.

Radebe said on Wednesday: "A mob of plus/minus 200 were gathering on the streets carrying bottles and knobkerries [wooden clubs] busy attacking people on the streets."

"They attacked one of the taverns there believed to be owned by Nigerians."

Radebe also said that the situation was being monitored by police, who were still investigating the motive behind the attack.

The Mercury newspaper quoted John Lazarus, a Durban police spokesperson, as saying that anti-immigrants groups had ordered the foreigners to "leave KwaZulu Natal", the country's most populous province.

Xenophobic violence broke out in Johannesburg, about 600km, north of Durban, 10 days ago and has claimed 24 lives, displaced 13,000 people and seen scores injured by rampaging mobs bearing axes, machetes and razing shacks to the ground.

'Quiet night'

Locals accuse foreigners, millions of whom migrate to South Africa in search of jobs and a better life, of committing crime and depriving them of employment opportunities.

Govindsamy Mariemuthoo, Johannesburg police spokesman, said the situation had been calm overnight, with only a few incidents to the east of the city that police quickly brought under control.



He said: "It has been quiet in the area overnight but there were a few incidents. For example, in the East Rand in Gugulethu and Ramaphosa informal settlements one shack each was set alight there."



"In Tembisa seven people were arrested for public violence and in Rabie Ridge three people were shot and taken to hospital. In Kya Sands police dispersed a crowd of about 100 people."

Source: Agencies

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Kalagensis
In light of this recent wave of violence a serious question needs to be asked about why are the Blacks attacking other Blacks on this level but never attacked the Whites the same way?Is it because in spite of a so called Black government the Whites are still protected by their skin which ties them to the racist power structure of the world.These attacks I believe are the pent up rage against both the Whites in South Africa and the ANC which many are now using to get rich.So much for the struggle!Remember a man named Cyril Ramaphosa?He was one of the ANC'S chief negotiators when Mandela was locked up.What is he doing now?Well it seems he has quit politics and joined the business community using his contacts in the government.He is now a billionaire with holdings in everything.The masses of poor Black South Africans are seething with anger and the attacks this week on Zimbabweans,Mozambiquens,Somalis ,Nigerians are just warning signs on whats to come.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TRIBAL ALLIANCE.: MOTHER AFRICA; THE ETERNAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR LANDS IS AT HAND.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TRIBAL ALLIANCE.: MOTHER AFRICA; THE ETERNAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR LANDS IS AT HAND.

There's a Moron in the White House.Keith Obermann rips George W.Bush a new one.

Keith Obermann rips Bush a new one in the spirit of FR Meril.This is the most bold and truthful statement about this the moron in the White house I've ever seen.This commentary is a call to arms that we are in the last days.We are about to enter an era of tyranny and chaos.Bush is exposed for the fool and liar he is.

The Enemy Within.Pt 1 Marcus Tillius Cicero The Roman Orator

The Kalagenesis has brought the Black world some explosive points to the quest for liberation.The first was the Kala Nation,second was 'Sacred Cows',the last was 'Arrested Development'Each of the three core points tell why the Black community is in a state of peril.In the Bible there are all of the laws and guides for prosperity longevity and living a holy or Godly existences on this Earth.Without following God's laws a people is cursed to failure and a life of Damnation.There are now attempts by the very wicked to trivialize the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ,in the name of Secular progressiveness.This means there are no morals or man is his own moral compass.Morals and values define a people and it is the difference between those families who live on for the next generations and those who disappear because of sin,and wickedness.We are all born in sin,but we are also forgiven for ours,if we repent and ask in his sons name.Every people have the obligation to free themselves from tyranny,oppression,poverty,want,ignorance.It is those vices that keep a people poor and down and not moving forward.How does one group of people seem to rise out of nothing and achieve greatness?It is unity,morals,and values.God puts that in even the most heathen among men.There is something that is in every man to do right and serve God.Being a good father,is serving God,Being a good student,teacher,son,daughter,law abiding citizen is serving God.When you are not serving god you are out of his graces.When you are out of his graces then you will be damned.The Black community if facing damnation because we have chosen to follow the very wicked,evil,and sinful among us.When I say among us I say we cannot see the blessing God has for us, what ever that might be because we are smitten with the false material prosperity that the Entertainer show us.Case in point RnB singer R Kelly who going on trial for child pornography soon and to show how low many in our community have fallen there are people who are lining up to support this sick man.Now he urinated on a little girl someones daughter.Where are the real Black men who should be running this sick bastard out of town?To many people who hate their own people and could care less about the most vulnerable among us.A little girl!What the hell is wrong with my people?Are we that damned?Who is responsible for the moral decline in Black America?Does this play into the hands of people who only want to see us as coons,sambos,slaves?As long as the main decision making concerning culture,reward and punishment,and status are not in the hands of real good Black men and women the whole socio economic system of the African people of America is doomed.We all know there will be criminals,thugs,gangsters,murderers ect among us,thats a given,but they should never rule over a people.When this happens a state of anarchy takes over and the people lose faith in the structure that governs them.In the broader America this problem happened but the average American kid believes in the golden rule or recognizes that things will work out if you live the straight and narrow.In other words for every White criminal who makes some money it is nothing compared to the millions who make millions time more the right way.We in the African American community don't have people on a large scale with millions of dollars who have kinship or have an allegiance to the Black community.These people are out for themselves and don't care about the negativity they bring to the Black community.Its all about the money.These people don't want a revolution,they don't even want Obama because they cant profit off him.Now it is one thing to make money but to work against the interest of your own people?Why do we have so many traitors among us?With out the self hating traitors among us we could build a culture,economic system,political power as shown by the 95% support for Barack Obama which is revolutionary.
The false argument from Micheal Savage about Cicero,and what he meant by the enemy within:One point is that Savage obviously did not read Cicero carefully enough.In Cicero's statements the enemy within were not left wing malcontents of the time nor were they the disaffected in his age.He was clearly taking about the ruling elite who as he put it were so drunk with power and self conceit that they were driving the state into oblivion.These people set people up murdered because their power went unchecked.He also said they plotted wars spending the treasure to divert attention away from the crisis in the streets.Here is when he said about them speaking in familiar tone.He was saying these traitors while they professed love for Rome they really were out for themselves and hid behind a false guise of patriotism.This is Savages problem he went after the wrong enemy within instead he choose to target caged sheep for a slaughter.The left wing people as he hates because they have realistic view of America not a false fanatic flag worshiping one as he does are not the enemy within.It is the people who are driving this country to suicidal war on terror while we still are depending on oil from those same people we as Americans claim we are at war with.
Marcus Tillius Cicero was born January 3 106 B.C. from the tribesmen of the Volscian mountains the city of Arpinium.They fought Rome in the early years 200 years before becoming citizens without suffrage.This dual identity on the part of the Arpinates explains why many became the strongest believers in the Roman republic and its courts.Assimilation means freedom from persecution.But the rulers by the time Cicero was born became to covet their Roman citizenship as something sacred,not as something that could eventually be attained by almost anyone who is exceptional.This went against the wise thinking of Rome's builders who enfranchised many to expand the Empire and use the rule of law to ensure peace.Gradually the Arpinates assimilated in Roman society and culture around 200 b.c.Shortly after the death of Hannibal and Scipio AfricanusThe Arpinate leader helped Rome defeat Jurgutha.Cicero was born during troubled times,the court system was corrupted to the point that people were tried for political reasons and the rich escaped justice by buying favors.The streets were unsafe because many people lost hope of becoming citizens,and they turned to crime,thievery robbery ect.People felt unsafe and the rights the Rome enjoyed were eroding.The wicked and corrupted leaders who plotted wars for plunder and gain were never brought to justice.All the while the people seethed with anger.Now any orator at the time who spoke out in the name of justice was called a hater,trouble maker,or worse.This was what Cicero was referring to,when the called those the 'enemy within'.Being an outsider almost in Rome he was always careful to following the golden rules because he knew his enemies would remind people of his Arpinium origins.These men like John Quincy Adams once wrote of the men tied to the plantation slavery system"will go to any lengths to preserve their ill gotten gains even if means plundering a country into civil war".
Cicero wrote about these traitors when he said: "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.


--Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman orator, statesman 42 B.C
This is the problem that parallels the African American community from the very day the first slaves were brought to this country.We have self serving,self hating race traitors who will send us back into slavery as surly as I am sitting here.The enemies of Black people select who shall rule over us and they are the buffer between them and us.In this blog series I will pull no punches, in exposing the phony entertainers,leaders,spokes mouths,elected officials in Black America and they will be silenced once and for all.
Kalagenesis

The Writing is on the Wall.The Emerging Black Blogger Power

Since the growth of the blogger sphere the mainstream media have not been able to shape opinions the way they could years ago.For many years the issues that decided elections were determined by the board room of the New York Times.The science of image making controls the way people think,feel,touch,see,believe in.If you see an image that stays with you forever.It effects what you desire,value,and hate.For years the mainstream media has controlled the agenda of Black people by creating false images like skin tone,education level,income level,or class.The recent development of Barack Obama to political power showcased the demise of the traditional power structure's strangle hold on the Black electorate.The mainstream media clearly were trying to deliver an easy victory for Hilary Clinton.The the media tried to discredit Obama's blackness by harping on his background both as a mixed raced man,and as an ivy league educated man.
Along comes the Black bloggers to set the record straight.For the longest time many in our community were tired of the ignorant,shuffle along people who were given a mic and ask to speak for the entire community.With the bloggers and the banding together of Black bloggers,millions of voices are now traveling through cyberspace.The Black Bloggers are the writing on the wall.It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room,something that cannot be ignored.The mainstream media cleverly started mentioning the ignorant bottom of Black America saying they don't care about Obama.Correct, these people won't prosper whoever wins in November.So why bother asking them?Image making.To paint a picture that Blacks are hopeless so why believe in a mixed raced ivy league Black man from Hawaii?Since the Black bloggers came out supporting Obama,through you tube,social networks,myspace the image making machine of the dominate media seemed obsolete.The Clintons,Black leaders,entertainers,host,rappers are all feeling the heat these blogs can bring.Asked Tavis Smiley,or that coon Bob Johnson.Speaking of Bob Johnson,have you ever heard anything negative about him in the mainstream media?No.Do you think this is an accident?No it is not.But look at how he is viewed on the internet.Image making,this matrix is real the internet really is the writing on the wall.
The following Washington post article on the so called divide among Blacks shows just what the Kalagenesis is reporting:

Obama's Bid Turns Focus
On Class Split Among Blacks
By JONATHAN KAUFMAN
January 22, 2008

ELGIN, S.C. -- Briana Parker, a 17-year-old African-American, drives her Honda every Wednesday from her suburban home here to the local Barack Obama headquarters to work the phone banks. Already accepted at six colleges, the high-school senior finds Mr. Obama an inspiration. "He reminds me that I can go and do things that others said I couldn't do," says Ms. Parker, who plans to double major at college and become a physical therapist.
[Barack Obama]

Seventeen miles and a world away, Malcolm Davis, 25, waits outside his parole office in Columbia, S.C. Like 13% of all black men -- 1.4 million in total -- he can't vote because he lives in a state that disenfranchises people convicted of certain felonies. He scoffs at Mr. Obama's message of hope and change. "He didn't grow up the way I grew up -- Mom smoking crack, Daddy smoking crack. It doesn't matter what I think. Just because a black man is running for president doesn't mean it's going to change things."

Even as Mr. Obama is promising to bring America together, his candidacy is casting new light on the mounting class divide in the black community -- and the debate among blacks about how to get ahead. The expanding black middle class -- accounting for about 40% of the black population -- see in Mr. Obama a validation of the choices they have made: attending largely white colleges, working in predominantly white companies and government offices, climbing up the ladder of American success.

For African-Americans living in the inner city -- where most children are being raised by single mothers, male unemployment in some cities tops 50% and 40% of young black men are either in jail, awaiting trial or on probation -- the view of Mr. Obama is much more skeptical. Black teenagers mock Mr. Obama as a "Halfrican" and a "50-percenter" for his biracial background; his mother is white, his Kenyan-born father was black. A recent special on Mr. Obama on Black Entertainment Television, the most popular station among inner-city blacks, was titled, "Obama: What's in It for Us?"

Wide Disparity of Support

A poll this fall by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank, shows the wide disparity of support for Mr. Obama among blacks. While 75% of blacks who went to college had a favorable or very favorable view of the candidate -- rising to 88% among blacks who went to graduate or professional school -- support dipped to 62% among those with just a high-school degree and to 42% among blacks who haven't finished high school. A similar pattern shows up as income levels fall among blacks. And while 83% of blacks employed full time had a favorable view of Mr. Obama, just 55% of unemployed blacks did.
[obamaclass]
Kurt Wilberding
THE RISE OF THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS

1954: In the Brown v. Board of Education decision, U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools illegal.
[Rosa Parks - 1969]
1955: Rosa Parks (right) is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins. A pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr., leads the boycott and becomes a national hero.
1956: Desegregation of the Montgomery, Ala., bus system.
1960: Only 20% of the U.S. black population finishes high school, compared with 43% of whites. Only 3% of blacks graduate from college. About 10% of blacks are considered middle class.
1961: President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order mandating federally-funded projects take "affirmative action" to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias.
1961: Barack Obama born.
1964: Passage of Civil Rights Act.
[King - 1968]
1964: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (right) is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965-1968: Passage of Voting Rights Act, a series of bills to end discrimination in jobs, education and housing.
1968: The Rev. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
1970: About 20% of blacks are considered middle class. The increase is fueled by black women leaving jobs as domestics for sales, clerical and service positions, and by men moving into professional, sales and technical jobs, and running their own businesses.
1980: Over 50% of blacks graduate from high school; about 8% graduate college.
1983: Obama graduates from Columbia University
[Jesse Jackson - 1984]
1984: Jesse Jackson (right) runs for the Democratic nomination. He tries again in 1988.
1984-1992: Bill Cosby produces and stars in "The Cosby Show," featuring an upper-middle class African-American family.
1991: Obama graduates from Harvard Law School. Was elected first black president of Harvard Law Review.
1996: Obama is elected to Illinois State Senate. He is reelected in 2000.
2000: Approximately 86% of blacks graduate from high school and 13% graduate from college. About 40% of blacks are considered middle class, defined as having a household income between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.
2004: Obama is elected to the U.S. Senate.
2007: Obama announces he'll run for the U.S. presidency.
Source: WSJ research

The black vote is key to Mr. Obama in South Carolina where he needs a victory this Saturday following defeat in New Hampshire and a mixed result in Nevada where he lost the caucus vote by 51% to 45% but won one more delegate than New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. His support among blacks across the country is swelling as he proves himself a formidable challenger to Mrs. Clinton, who initially rallied black support because of her and her husband's support of black issues. Despite losing in Nevada, Mr. Obama won about 83% of the black vote, according to exit polls. A CNN poll released last week showed Mr. Obama with almost 60% support among black voters across the U.S., compared with 31% for Mrs. Clinton. Here in South Carolina, several polls have shown Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton by about 8% overall with wide leads among black voters.

Many poor blacks don't vote, so their skepticism likely won't hurt Mr. Obama's candidacy. But Mr. Obama's challenge goes beyond politics: Can he unite his own community -- and, if elected president, inspire and uplift African-Americans of all classes?

Many of the features that whites find most appealing about Mr. Obama -- his mixed-race background, cosmopolitan upbringing, the ease with which he moves among whites -- stir unease among some blacks. The debate among blacks about Mr. Obama has become unusually intimate, including discussions about the color of his wife's skin.

"People say, 'How can this guy, black as he may be, relate to me?'" says Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general who is black and an Obama adviser. "But as people hear his story and the choices he has made throughout his life, they will understand that he not only looks like them but that there is a natural connection."

Mr. Obama's candidacy comes amid an intensifying argument in the black community about what it means to be black in America and how blacks succeed. A survey this past fall by Pew Research found that 60% of blacks say the values of poor and middle-class blacks have grown more dissimilar over the past decade -- with "values" defined as "things that people view as important or their general way of thinking." Almost 40% of blacks say that the values of poor and middle-class blacks have diverged so much that blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. Middle class is commonly defined as households making between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.

Bill Cosby, now ranked by blacks as one of the people they admire most, according to the Pew Research survey, has been traveling across the country, visiting black churches and organizations, lacerating poor black parents: "I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit [prison garb]. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is his father?"

"You know how whites used to clutch their purses in the elevator whenever a black teenager stepped in," says Natalie Brown, who works with poor blacks here through the local Urban League. "Now blacks do it, too."

Mr. Obama rarely discusses race on the campaign trail though he occasionally talks about seeing teenagers in Chicago hanging out on street corners who "look like me." His policy prescriptions for the inner city are similar to those of former Sen. John Edwards and Mrs. Clinton, including more money for jobs and education and reforming the criminal-justice system to eliminate the discrepancy in sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, used more by blacks, and powdered cocaine, used more by whites.

But Mr. Obama is likely to address inner-city issues more directly as the primaries now move to South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states. Blacks make up 15% or more of the Democratic primary vote in many of those states, including Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, New York and Missouri.

"Imagine having a president who was raised like I was by a single mom on food stamps," Mr. Obama declared during a recent rally before blacks in South Carolina. "Imagine having a president who can go into black neighborhoods and give young men and women someone to look up to."

'We Are Breaking Apart'

Class has divided American blacks ever since slave owners divided blacks into field slaves and more favored house slaves and interracial relationships left some blacks with lighter skin. Lloyd Kinnitt, a retired cook who grew up in Georgia and now lives in Boston, recalls his mother looking askance at some black neighbors and telling him: "They may be my color but they're not my kind."

Such class distinctions are true among white Americans and ethnic groups as well; whites in South Carolina talk about rednecks and "trailer trash." But the debate over class in the black community has been particularly harsh in recent decades because while many, like Mr. Obama, have seen incomes and opportunities grow, others, even in the same families, have slipped further and further behind.

Mr. Obama himself wrote about this dilemma in his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," published before he entered politics. Describing a confrontation with some black teenagers in a car in a poor part of Chicago where he was working as a community organizer, Mr. Obama described the fear and alienation he felt: "As much as I might tell myself otherwise, we are breaking apart these boys and me, into different tribes, speaking a different tongue, living by a different code."
[photo]
Herbert Tolliver cuts the hair of Dr. Clarence Dollison, in Columbia, S.C. The Obama campaign is targeting barbershops, where the different classes of the black community often cross paths.

Some poor blacks worry that whites will look at Mr. Obama's success and conclude that the "system" works -- that if Mr. Obama can succeed the government doesn't need to provide further programs for poor blacks in the inner cities.

"When he says, there is no white America, there is no black America -- well, there is," says Ronald Peder, a black activist and writer in Boston. "If he really believes in all this magic about change in America -- well, I don't feel anything is going to change in black America."

"I don't see anyone campaigning to people in the inner city" says Clifton Tobias, a warehouse worker at United Parcel Service here in Columbia. "Their campaigns are directed to whites and the suburbs, not people who are poor and black."

It's not just politicians who are leaving poor blacks behind, many blacks say, but the middle class as well. "It's a divide," says Herbert Tolliver, who runs a Columbia barbershop that draws in poor young black men as well as the middle class. "Oftentimes we don't want to admit it but we don't reach back and pull those up behind us like we should."

One of the things that many poor and middle-class blacks say they like best about Mr. Obama is that his wife, Michelle, who attended Princeton and Harvard Law School, is dark-skinned. Color has long been a sensitive subject in the black community, with men and women of lighter skin seen as having higher status.

Rev. Eugene Rivers, who works in Boston's poor black neighborhoods, says he was in his local barbershop last week "and there was a magazine with photos of Obama and his family. Someone held up the picture of him hugging his wife and the guys all started saying, 'She's a dark sister.'"

"Many of our male celebrities, sports figures, they marry white women or light-skinned wives," says Darnell Cooper, a laborer in Columbia, S.C. "We all see that on television. But you turn on the TV and you see Michelle Obama and she looks black. I can identify with her." He laughs. "I can tell you this: He would have a lot less votes if his wife were light-skinned or white."

Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor who taught both Barack and Michelle Obama in law school, says, "I always tell Barack, 'You married up.' Michelle went to the best schools but she never lost sight that she is in a minority -- a black woman in America. That resonates with people and makes them see Obama in a very different light."

If Mr. Obama is greeted with some skepticism in poor black communities, the mood among the middle class is fervent, especially in families that identify with Mr. Obama's struggles and choices.
[chart]

"He is a living example of how doing the right thing and getting an education and striving is possible without your having to give up your identity," says Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a prominent black psychiatrist in Boston.

"When I was 5 years old, I said I was going to be president," says David Thomas, a black dean at Harvard Business School who grew up in the 1960s. "By the time I was 7, I said I would be the first black president because I knew what color meant. By the time I was 9, I said I'll be a lawyer because I knew that black people don't become president."

Last month, at Christmas with relatives in Kansas City, Mo., Mr. Thomas watched as two young cousins, 4 and 6, argued with each other about who would become president first. "I don't think by the time they turn 9 they will have changed their minds," he says.

Volunteering for Mr. Obama

Anita Parker, Briana Parker's mother, says she initially backed Hillary Clinton. She became more interested in Mr. Obama when her daughter began volunteering for him. Soon she was volunteering as well, and bringing along her 13-year-old son, Bryce.

Ms. Parker, a school administrator, says she likes the way Mr. Obama has reached out to whites as well as blacks. "Obama is not just campaigning with one group in mind, he is truly interested in helping everybody," she says. Two years ago, Ms. Parker moved her family from Beaufort, S.C., to Elgin, a suburb northeast of Columbia, in part to raise her children in a mixed-race community; the school her children now attend is about 60% black. The family rents a home in a well-to-do subdivision where houses sell for between $100,000 and $300,000.

Back in Beaufort, where Ms. Parker lived in a less affluent and predominately black community, she says she worked hard to make sure her children spoke standard English rather than the rural dialect or street slang that many of their classmates used. Her son, Bryce, was in first grade when she recalls his teacher asking her: "Where is he from? He doesn't talk like us."

The children say there is less criticism from other blacks now because many of the black and other students at their schools share the same goals. Briana has recruited two of her African-American classmates, also college-bound seniors, to volunteer for Mr. Obama. One plans to be a physical therapist like her; the other a heart surgeon.

"Even if he doesn't win, he shows us that we can do just as much or even more," says Briana. "We can get to the level we are trying to get to -- the Bill Gates level, the Oprah level."

"Obama has the same kind of hope for his children and focus and determination that I do," says her mother. "The fact that he has gotten this far means maybe the minds of Americans have opened more than I thought."

Write to Jonathan Kaufman at jonathan.kaufman@wsj.com
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Revolutionary meeting.Rapper 50 cent meets Black South African Billionaire Patrice Motsepe

Well it seems 50 cent has been reading the writing on the wall.Could he be going from gangster to revolutionary?Hustler to businessmen?Outside hip hop 50 cent is probably the most powerful Black man in the world.But in spite of that fact his continuing of the whole thug gangster culture he is a part of will be his demise.If he can see the bigger picture he can go down as a great man.Africa and the world can be his escape.Africa offers endless possibility for young people here and on the continent.The continent needs 50 cent.Young people want to build the continent.To do so they need confidence and support.50 gave just that.People in Africa see one of there own.They are proud it does not matter what he sings.Only in America will his talent be wasted on thug rap and the insanity with it.He has his eye on South Africa's booming economy.Thisis something all the so called nationalist failed to do.Marcus Garvey's dream is finally being realized.African Americans joining the Africans on the continent to build for all.-Kalagensis

Billionaire Patrice Motsepe is using star power in his quest to get South Africa's young people involved in mining. He and U.S. rap star 50 Cent are set to join forces in a major deal to benefit the Country's youth. Although no details have been released yet, it has been established that they are in talks to launch a project that will encourage young South Africans to develop an interest in mining.

Steve Mashalane, Chief Executive of ARM Platinum, said prior to his arrival for two concerts in South Africa this week, the U.S. rapper had indicated that he wanted to meet Motsepe and that he had hoped to get an opportunity to visit mining communities.

50 Cent-Real name Curtis Jackson- told Business Times that he has had his eye on Motsepe since spotting him on the cover of Forbes Magazine a few months ago.

Motsepe took time out this week to attend the popular rapper's concert at the Dome, north of Johannesburg where they chatted in a private suite before the performance. On Friday, the mining magnate took 50 Cent to several mines Mpumalanga, where they chatted with the Chiefs of various villages who hold an interest in some of the Company's aspirations. And in a first for 50 Cent, the two also went down the mine at Two Rivers Platinum in Mpumalanga- an experience the artist thought was "hot."

Then, late on Friday they travelled together in Motsepe's private jet to Cape Town, where the artist was scheduled to perform the second half of the South African tour.